The wolf skull logo, synonymous with the Bored Apes Kennel Club (BAKC) NFT series from Yuga Labs, has found its legitimacy under question. Easy Drawing Guides, a platform that provides easy drawing tutorials for beginners is being touted as the original creator of the skull sketch. The platform has claimed that Yuga Labs has no legal right to use its intellectual property. Meanwhile, Yuga Labs has trademarked BAKC’s unlicenced logo as its own.
BAYC’s Kennel Club NFTs, that debuted the logo in question, was launched in June 2021. On the other hand, the Easy Drawing Guides had posted a tutorial on how to draw a wolf skull in April 2021. The illustration very closely resembles the logo of BAYC.
“The intellectual property rights for the drawing belong to Easy Drawing Guides as it’s our original drawing and protected by our Terms and Conditions,” a CoinTelegraph report has quoted the sketching tutorial platform as saying in an email interaction.
Addressing the controversy, Greg Solano, the co-founder of Yuga Labs has claimed that the issue is being investigated internally.
“Have reached out to the freelancer we hired for that design and Easy Drawing Guides. We’ll be changing the logo and updating it on our site / ask marketplaces to change as well. This collection was meant from the start to be about raising money for charity and I’m proud of the fact that BAKC raised over $1 million (roughly Rs. 8 crore) for animal charities. Will debut the new logo soon so we can continue to do some good work for causes we care about,” Solano tweeted.
Saw the claims today about the BAKC logo. This was news to us and we’re still investigating the situation. Have reached out to the freelancer we hired for that design and Easy Drawing Guides. We’ll be changing the logo and updating it on our site / ask marketplaces to change as… https://t.co/OwtflDXehz
— Garga.eth (Greg Solano) (@CryptoGarga) February 18, 2023
As per the terms and conditions of Easy Drawing Guides, it can grant a non-exclusive and non-transferable limited licence pertaining to its artwork only for personal and non-commercial use.
People have accused Yuga Labs of simply pulling a design out of Google for its NFT collection and now coming under a copyright infringement issue.
just like how Yuga Labs / BAYC stole their logo from googling “ss totenkopf” .and “ape skull drawing” . for BAKC all they did to steal their logo was google “Wolf skull drawing”… PROOF: pic.twitter.com/6uZnEp5Ulf
— RYDER RIPPS :soon: (@ryder_ripps) February 17, 2023
Your company, not some “freelancer” is responsible.
The hundreds of millions you made off this project actually belong to @easydrawinguide
You can change a logo but you can’t change the nfts you used to reap millions
— Crypto Bitlord (@crypto_bitlord7) February 18, 2023
For now, it remains unclear if Yuga Labs will compensate Easy Drawing Guides in an out of the court settlement.
This is not the first time, however, that Yuga Labs has found itself in a legal issue in recent times.
Last year in July, the NFT brand was accused of manipulating buyers with celebrity endorsements and inflated prices.
Yuga Labs is also under investigation by US’ Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for alleged securities violations.